Reviews for Darwin

The average rating for Darwin based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-10-16 00:00:00 Mike Early This biography of Darwin was less dry than I feared. I've got a couple of Michael White's other biographies, and I've recently read his biography of C.S. Lewis, and it wasn't a fluke that I enjoyed it. He and his co-author wrote very clearly and engagingly; despite Darwin's less than emotional tendencies, they manage to bring out his character very well, at the same time as discussing his science. (Good companion to this book: the Darwin Song Project CD. Karine Polwart's "We're All Leaving" breaks my heart over and over.) Given that I have a decent level of knowledge re: Darwin's work, genetics more generally, and modern developments concerning the field, I found the scientific detail a little frustrating, because it retrod ground I'm very used to. If you want to approach the idea of evolution through an accessible figure, though, Michael White and John Gribbin did a great job here. My main criticism is the same as for White's biography of Lewis: it isn't chronological, but rather thematic, leading to the problem of repeated information and other such redundancies, and a sense of not being quite sure when in Darwin's life they're actually discussing.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-14 00:00:00 Frank Garland I started this book in 1996, before my first child was born. Thought it might be time to finish it! An excellent overview of Darwin's life, well written though repetitive at times. As far as I can tell, the authors did not really have or claim to have new discoveries or insights, but it was a successful compilation of elements that readers interested in Darwin might know already from other sources.